International

An account of the current geopolitical predicament, and its implications for the system of international regimes and organizations, needs to be posed in terms of both order and legitimacy. READ MORE

Institute of International Monetary Research | Novels can tell us a lot about the world, and about a time. At the beginning of the Nobel Prize winner José Saramago’s The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – the avatar of Pessoa, the poet not the LSE economist for whom Portugal can also hope great things – the eponymous hero is disembarking in Lisbon after a long journey. Away for 16 years, he lacks local currency but that doesn’t matter at all for the porter who helps with the luggage. Not only a particular world but also a greater truth is captured in how this is described: “I have only English money, Oh, that’s fine, and he saw ten shillings placed into his right hand, coins that shone more brightly than the sun itself” (my emphasis). READ MORE